Foreign purchase of Aust real estate

Justin O`Connell Greens Population Sustainability Working Group member response to recent can do better post

Geoff. I usually love the posts you send but you need to be careful with the like of Mr Folkes. He is an avowed racist and neo-Nazi. It's all well to say you love your country and are concerned about developments but his concerns and that of his party are couched clearly in terms of racial superiority. Mr Folkes says at one point that the Greens are with Labor and the liberals in selling out our future. Now I would venture to say that no one in the NSW Greens has challenged its policies and strategies more than myself as one with in its membership but I would never suggest or ally myself with one who says that they are selling the future out. I am with them because I think that they may be our best hope and our only hope amongst all the political parties to achieve what we want as part of our WG. None of the other parties do with the exception of Kelvin Thompson. I would say that the NSW Greens are not selling us out intentionally. To assist them in getting what we want we need to be careful who we associate with and with whom we throw stones. As I said previously I am complaining to the Greens Office about a member of the WSG who stated that my suggested amendments and comments regarding the AG policy on Immigration and refugees was odious and racist. I am arguing and it is clear that I can contest this well and I hope you and others agree. You can't help some people. I don't want the waters muddied by people like Mr Folkes. Lastly and most importantly Mr Folkes' campaigns and publicity stunts are all well and good but they would have been better directed years ago when the blocks of land, houses and home units were sold to White people like south Africans in St Ives and other places on the North Shore and to have written letters to the editor of MSM and local rags when these same classes of property were being sold to Pommies and NZers who have been, until the last 2 years, the main category of migrant to Australia. Therefore on this basis I think Mr Folkes party racially biased. Don't let this stop you and others on the path to reducing population growth though. I agree that it is wrong to sell property to foreign nationals but this is the job of the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) and more effort into scrutiny of this agency would be welcome. This was also lacking on the part of Mr Folkes and his gang who like some Greens would rather bully, with the safety of numbers, people who oppose and question them. I would question whether it is just good enough to oppose sale of property to foreign nationals. In Australia there are many citizens who have resident status and even citizen status of other countries therefore are able to own property in multiple countries and jurisdictions, e.g., UK and Australia, the hypocritical Bob Carr who owns property in both NZ and Australia (that we know of), Philippines and Australia, USA and Australia, Ireland and Australia, Greece and Australia, Italy/Malta/ bits of the former Yugoslavia and Australia, etc. It may be legally wrong to sell property to Chinese Nationals and for them to own property in both countries but how right is it for these other people to own property in both Australia and other jurisdictions just because it may be legal and whose laws on asset ownership are more relaxed? I suggest we stop the growth in numbers first and work towards reducing net immigration first. This will dampen demand and all those investors will have fewer people to let these properties out to. Justin